Site Visit Guidelines 

Dear Volunteer,

 

Thank you for conducting the site visit. The following set of guidelines and questionnaire is a recommended format that we use at Asha Colorado to receive site visit reports. We realize that some of the questions may not be relevant to the project you visited, but we hope that you will try and fill out as much information as possible, especially to those questions that are relevant to the project that you visited.

 

Thank you once again, and hope to have your continued support for Asha and our activities.

 

Asha for Education, Colorado Chapter

 

Contact Information:

 

Project Steward Information (Asha volunteer responsible for the project at the CO chapter):

 

Name:

Address:

Phone Number(s):

Fax:

Email:

 

Site Visitor’s Information:

 

Name:

Address:

Phone Number(s):

Fax:

Email:

 

A) Preparation before visiting the Project

 

You should be able to collect the following information from the Project Steward

 

·         Project proposal

·         Past correspondence with the project

·         Any specific information that the project steward is looking for, from the site visit.

 

You also need to have some understanding about Asha for Education and our mission. This will help you to tailor your site visit in a more fruitful manner for Asha. You can get detailed information about Asha for Education from our web site at http://www.ashanet.org

 

Please study all the given material well and have a copy of the original or modified project proposal with you before going for the site visit. It will be good if the volunteer can spend some time going through past correspondence. 

 

Our Project Steward will help you out in getting any information you need for the site visit. But in case you could not contact the project steward, please contact any of Asha Colorado volunteer for further help or write us atashasv-info@yahogroups.com ashacolorado_projects@yahoogroups.com

 

Usually we recommend a surprise site visit.  But, if there is information required from the project contact like directions etc, feel free to contact them.

We also encourage you to talk individually to some students and teachers. From the students, you can gather how well they are taught and from the teachers, you can gather how motivated they are to teach. You could, for example, test basic arithmetic and reading/writing skills of the children to see what they know.

 

 

We also strongly encourage you to fill out this document rather than showing it to the project contact in India and asking them to fill it out.

If possible, we recommend getting photos/videos of the project being visited.

The organization should be studied carefully. 

It will be good if the volunteer can spend some time going through past correspondence. 

 

if the organization is running many centers and it may not be possible for you to visit all of them, visits should be made of centers randomly selected by you rather than letting the organization show you centers of their choice. Organizations are known to run their sample centers whichcenters, which they would prefer to show to you.

 

Questions should also be asked of grassroots volunteers and local people outside the organization when the main volunteers (or people who run the organization) are not present to get a true picture of the state of affairs

 

B) After Project Responsibilities

 

It would be nice to keep in mind that after project site visit it would be appreciated if youIt would be appreciated if after the project site visit you could do one or more of these:

·         Submit a written project site visit report

·         Give a presentation in person at an Asha meeting, if possible

·         Update the project steward on the visit and your impressions

Present any photographs/video that you took during the site visit (this is greatly encouraged as your photos/video help us see and hear what is going on at the project)

 

 

C) Doing the actual visit:

 

Date:

Name of Project:

Name of the organization running the project (if different):

 

Was your site visit planned and known to the project, or was it a surprise visit?     

 

Project Contact:

Name:

Address:

Phone Number(s):

Fax:

Email:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guidelines for carrying outQuestions related to Monitoring and Evaluation of a project

 

 

Organization:Organizations can be classified in two categories - those that are working in areas that have funds available and those that acquire funds for the areas they want to work on. Which area does this organization belong to?  Drop this question, it will be covered through proposal

 

1.       What is the background and commitment of people involved in the organization? Have they given sufficient thought to their work before preparing the proposal? Are they going to continue working on the issue even after Asha’s support for the project is over?  Yes, it is more for steward, but if person visiting can find information about there commitment, great.

1.        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.       What is the administrative structure of the organization and how democratic is it’s functioning? How is the relationship between the main volunteers of the organization (or people who run the organization) and the grassroots level volunteers?  ( Grassrroots level volunteers are the people involved in running daily operations, e.g. teachers, ayah’s, trainers etc.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.       How many women hold key positions or play an important role in the decision making within the organization's hierarchy? 

 

 

 

 

4.       Are the grass roots volunteers local or from outside? 

 

5.       Do the main volunteers perform only administrative duties or actually spend time at the grassroots? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project:

1.      If the organization runs a school what is the socio-economic background of the children

 

 

 

 

. 

2.       Do the children continue their education after graduating from the school of the organization or drop out? If they drop out, how many of them do that and for what reasons? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.       Does the organization give a thought to what will happen to the children after they leave it's school? 

 

 

4.       What is the distance of other schools (Govt. or private) from the school of the organization and how do they run? Why do the children prefer the school run by the organization? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.       If it is a Non-Formal Education (NFE) center being run by the organization how many of the children attending this program go to other formal schools in the area? (This question should be asked to the children and not the teachers or the volunteers of the organization.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.       Which are the other funding agencies giving money to the organization and for what programs? Ensure that the organization is not receiving all the money for the same program from two different sources. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.       What are the daily school hours? How many days of the month/year is the school open?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teachers/Volunteers:

1.       What is the teacher student ratio? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.       How many volunteers/teachers are from the local community?

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.       What is their level of education?(Most of them are graduate or 12th standard pass etc.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.       What is there professional background? (Working as a teacher from long time, or have teaching experience or some kind of training, or housewife and volunteering first time etc.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.       What it the motivation for them to work here?

 

 

 

6.       How long have they been with the organization/project?

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.       Have they committed personal finances to the project?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8.       Where do they live, and what is the commute time to work here?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9.       How much are they paid, is it at par with other similar projects in that area?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10.   Are they satisfied with their salaries?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11.   How many teachers/volunteers have left the project in the previous year? Why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12.   How many new teachers/volunteers have joined in the previous year?

 

 

13.   Does the organization train the teachers? If yes, how do they provide the training?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14.   How many volunteers are paid and how many are unpaid volunteers?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Students:

1.       When you visited, how many children were in the classroom?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.       What is the girl boy ratio? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.       What is the regular class strength?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.       Do the children seem to enjoy the school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.       What are the other activities they do outside of school hours?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.       What is their motivation for attending the school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.       Does somebody try to convince them not to drop out? If so, how and how much success have they had in prevention of dropouts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8.       How far do the children have to travel to attend school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9.       What do other children of the same age in the community do, that don’t attend this school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10.   Why do they not attend this school?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11.   Do they attend another school in the same area?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12.   Are you able to accommodate all children who want to join? If not, how do you select? (What admission criteria do you use?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13.   Have you made attempts to increase intake of students? If so, how, and how successful has it been? If no, why not?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14.   Can we get a copy of the school roster and attendance records and progress reports?

 

 

 

 

 

15.   Does the school have toilets that the children can use?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16.  Can you describe a typical day in school for the students?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17.  If the school has records of school-administrated tests, can you take a look at it and give your comments about how students are performing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18.   These type of questions should be more personalized, this means project steward adds these types of questions in the doc, when going for or giving it to somebody for site visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Local people/parents/community:

1.       What is the relationship between the local people and the organization at the work location?

 

 

2.       What is the extent of involvement of the local people in the organization's work? 

 

 

 

 

3.       What opinion do the people of the area have about the organization? 

 

 

 

 

4.       Do the local people contribute their time, effort or money towards the organization's activities? Does the organization have a social support base in the area? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.       Questions should also be asked of grassroots volunteers and local people outside the organization when the main volunteers (or people who run the organization) are not present to get a true picture of the state of affairs. (More like a guideline than a question)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Infrastructure:

 

1.       How much of the infrastructure and other resources, like vehicles, are being used by the organization and how much of it lies underutilized? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.       Are the buildings permanent or temporary constructions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.       What is the current physical condition of the buildings?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.       How big are the classrooms? How many children do they house?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.       What is the geographical location of the project? Is the construction done keeping local conditions in mind, or is it a generic concrete structure?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.       Do they have

§         Compound wall

 

 

 

 

 

Finance:

1.       Accounts related information. What is the salary/honorarium that the teachers get? Does it conform to the figures in the account books?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.        What is the amount being spent on the children for snacks/food, clothes, etc., according to the budget and whether it conforms to the real situation? 

 

 

 

 

 

3.       Do they have detailed records of past funding and spending? If yes can you get copies of that?  (Copy of annual financial statements, for example)

 

 

 

 

4.      Do they have an annual report? Can we get a copy of that?

 

 

 

5.      Any budget related questions?

 

Others: